Sources of Historical Data

SOURCES OF HISTORICAL
DATA The historians deal with the dynamic or

genetic (the becoming) as well as the
static (the being) and aims at being
interpretative (explaining why and how
HISTORICAL DATA things happened and were interrelated)
as well as descriptive (telling what
happened, when and where, and who
● Sourced from artifacts that have
took part).
been left by the past.
● Can either be relics or remains or
the testimonies of witnesses to WRITTEN SOURCES OF HISTORY
the past.
● Thus, historical sources are those ● Written sources are usually
materials from which historians categorized in three ways:
construct meaning. 1) narrative or literary,
● Relics or remains, offer 2) diplomatic or juridical, and
researchers a clue about the 3) social documents.
past.
● Artifacts can be found where
NARRATIVE OR LITERATURE
relics if human happenings can
be found, for example, a
potsherd, a coin, a ruin, a ● Are chronicles or tracts presented
manuscript, a book, a portrait, a in narrative form, written to impart
stamp, a piece of wreckage, a a message whose motives for
strand of hair, or other their composition vary widely.
archaeological or anthropological Examples:
❖ A scientific tract is typically in
remains.
order to inform contemporaries
● Testimonies of witnesses, or succeeding generations
whether oral or written, may have ❖ A newspaper article might be
been created to serve as records intended to shape opinion
or they might have been created ❖ The so-called ego document or
personal narrative such as
for some other purposes.
diary or memoir in order to
● The lives of human beings can be persuade readers
assumed from the retrieved ❖ A novel or film for
artifacts, but without further entertainment
evidence the human contexts of ● A narrative source is therefore
these artifacts can never be broader than what is usually
recaptured with any degree of considered fiction(Howell &
certainty. Prevenier, 2001)
DIPLOMATIC SOURCES property registers, and records of
census.
● Are understood to be those which

document/record an existing legal NON-WRITTEN SOURCES OF
situation or create a new one, HISTORY
and it is these kinds of sources
that professional historians once MATERIAL EVIDENCE
treated as the purest, the “best”
source.
● known as archeological evidence
● The classic diplomatic source
is one of the most important
is the charter, which is a legal
unwritten evidences. This
instrument.
includes artistic creations such as
● A legal document is usually
pottery, jewelry, dwellings,
sealed or authenticated to
graves, churches, roads, and
provide evidence that a legal
others that tell a story about the
transaction has been completed
past.
and can be used as evidence in a
● These artifacts can tell a great
judicial proceeding in case of
deal about the ways of life of
dispute.
people in the past, and their
● Diplomatic Sources possess
culture.
specific formal properties, such
● Can also reveal about the
as hand and print style, the ink,
socio-cultural interconnections of
the seal, for external properties
the different groups of people
and rhetorical devices and
especially when an object is
images for internal properties,
unearthed in more than one
which are determined by the
place.
norms of laws and by tradition.
● Commercial exchange is also
revealed by the presence of
SOCIAL DOCUMENTS artifacts in different places.
● Historians can get substantial
● Are information pertaining to information from drawings,
economic, social, political, or etchings, paintings, films, and
judicial significance. They are photographs.
records kept by bureaucracies.
For example, government
reports, such as municipal
accounts, research findings, and
documents like parliamentary
procedures, civil registry records,
ORAL EVIDENCE provide valuable interpretations
of historical events.
● Analyzes and interprets primary
● Also an important source of sources
information for historians. ● Interpretation of second-hand
● Much is told by the tales and account of historical events
sagas of ancient peoples and the ● Examples : biographies, histories,
folk songs or popular rituals from literary criticism, books written by
the premodern period of a third party about a historical
Philippine history. event, art and theater reviews,
● Interviews in another major form newspaper or journal articles that
of oral evidence. interpret.
PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY

SOURCES
PRIMARY SOURCES
● Original, first-hand account of an

event or period that is usually
written or made during or close to
the event or period.
● These sources are original and
factual, not interpretative.
● The key is to provide facts.
● Examples : diaries, journals, letters,
newspaper and magazine articles
(factual accounts), government
records, photographs, maps,
posters, recorded or transcribed
speeches, interviews with
participants, paintings, sculptures,
and drawings.
SECONDARY SOURCES
● Are materials made by people

long after the events being
described had taken place to

Sources of Historical Data

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SOURCES OF HISTORICAL

DATA The historians deal with the dynamic or

● Are understood to be those which

PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY

● Original, first-hand account of an

● Are materials made by people

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